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My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

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Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#61

Post by Osiris »

malgorithms wrote: post #8

I wish I knew someone who used Opera so I could ask them to start boycotting it.

I use Opera on the desktop and on my mobile devices. So does my wife. I'm not going to stop using it because of a lawsuit, let alone for one that has not had any facts proven in a court.

I really don't understand why people who don't know the facts of cases like this (i.e., you don't have an inside knowledge of the nitty-gritty), jump to conclusions to readily. Aren't we supposed to be a community of rational, thoughtful people that use facts and evidence to backup opinions?

Do you stop using Google products when they get sued by various government agencies for things like collecting WiFi data? Why doesn't Google get the benefit of your doubt but not other companies?

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#62

Post by shubb »

kbenson wrote: post #45
magclock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a contractor selling the okc source code tree to some Chinese "entrepreneur" who launches a copycat site in China that somehow gains 300M members within a year? Just one extreme to make your statement look silly.

I'm pretty sure that's covered under copyright. The company owns the code. A trade secret is... what?

If you have an idea and keep it secret, it is protected from some reverse engineering or industrial espionage as a trade secret.

Unlike a patent, if you competitor invents it independently, then it is no longer a trade secret. You are only protected against a restricted range of dodgy dealing, and then only if you took adequate security measures (employees under appropriate NDA, not obvious in your product, obfuscated if sourcecode, that sort of thing).

Some people say they are 'software patents done right'. Certainly they serve a different purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#64

Post by michaelochurch »

nly wrote: post #57
michaelochurch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the possibility (perhaps remote) that damaging the ex-employer's reputation (by disclosing what at least looks pretty vindictive) will bring it [ETA: the ex-employer] into a two-front war and make them less successful in the suit? I'm not a lawyer so I'm way out of my depth here, but is this something that could possibly work? Edit: slippery pronoun

I don't see that being a problem, provided everything he wrote is simply a matter of fact. Perhaps I'm an optimist.

No, I meant to discuss the possibility that disclosure is good for OP, because he'd want his ex-employer to be in a two-front war.

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#65

Post by nly »

I find it interesting that Opera are trying to claw back revenue on old innovations while seemingly stagnating.

The rendering engine they're dumping in favour of WebKit is fast and slick. The number of new user visible features and the rate of releases has seemed sluggish to me for what must be 4 or 5 years.

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#66

Post by oijaf888 »

magclock wrote: post #43
malgorithms wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you I'd never sue someone for stealing trade secrets. Whatever "trade secrets" means in software, anyway.

How about a contractor selling the okc source code tree to some Chinese "entrepreneur" who launches a copycat site in China that somehow gains 300M members within a year? Just one extreme to make your statement look silly.

Given the biggest "trade secret" on OkCupid is the matching algorithm and its laid out so that anyone who wanted to would be able to implement it, I bet he would be pretty excited to hear that 300M people in China found his idea awesome.

Also it would probably be faster to write a copy from scratch in rails than figure out the various dependencies for OKWS and SFSLite (unless that's really improved since I was there). :)

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#67

Post by malgorithms »

liquidise wrote: post #50
malgorithms wrote: post #8

I wish I knew someone who used Opera so I could ask them to start boycotting it.

Right, because justice tends to be a one-sided story. Let's be clear that all you are basing your opinion on is an abridged, single viewpoint account of events. There is such a rush to bless this guys post and chastise opera in these comments it is astounding. I don't understand the complete disregard for a balanced consideration of the facts.

Unfortunately, justice is a one-sided story when large companies sue individuals or tiny companies at large corporate magnitudes. A defense alone can be financially devastating. Second, sadly, it's for "trade secrets" in the the world of software. Come on!

I (and again, this is personal, lest someone drag my former companies into this) stand by my statements, as long as this lawsuit exists.

If the basic facts themselves are wrong, then of course I will back off my statement. If Opera is not suing an individual for ~$3.4MM USD for divulging trade secrets, then great.

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#68

Post by mpyne »

andreastt wrote: post #56
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Opera is in no way a proponent of non-profit or open source software. They are a publicly traded for-profit company and their main product is proprietary.

Except that Opera has historically been one of the most significant proponents for open standards, the WHATWG, and opening the web to people without internet access. One should also not forget that Opera is now contributing, and have already landed several patches, to the Chromium and Blink projects.

Yes, but that's certainly a great position to take for a small for-profit selling a proprietary product designed to interpret content primarily written for other software.

Corel probably would have been thrilled to have Adobe make their formats completely open and "standardized" back in the day to reduce the friction of switching products.

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#69

Post by pyre »

nly wrote: post #57
michaelochurch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the possibility (perhaps remote) that damaging the ex-employer's reputation (by disclosing what at least looks pretty vindictive) will bring it [ETA: the ex-employer] into a two-front war and make them less successful in the suit? I'm not a lawyer so I'm way out of my depth here, but is this something that could possibly work? Edit: slippery pronoun

I don't see that being a problem, provided everything he wrote is simply a matter of fact. Perhaps I'm an optimist.

"Truth is an absolute defence against libel/slander," does not hold up under many jurisdictions in Europe. More like, "people with more money get to decide what the 'truth' is."

Re: My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

#70

Post by enraged_camel »

liquidise wrote: post #50
malgorithms wrote: post #8

I wish I knew someone who used Opera so I could ask them to start boycotting it.

Right, because justice tends to be a one-sided story. Let's be clear that all you are basing your opinion on is an abridged, single viewpoint account of events. There is such a rush to bless this guys post and chastise opera in these comments it is astounding. I don't understand the complete disregard for a balanced consideration of the facts.

Please tell us what is so "balanced" about a large company suing an individual for millions of dollars.
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